Monday, November 3, 2014

WUWT wants your best paranoid conspiracy theory about the IPCC

WUWT has had three articles in the past 24 hours, protesting the latest reports from the IPCC. These IPCC reports are not new material. What they are is a Synthesis Report, combining the reports of the three working groups. And a Summary for Policymakers of that Synthesis Report.

As well as a summary from the media reports (archived here), Anthony Watts has got utter nutters from the piddly and incestuous "climate science coalitions". He has a "press release" quoting Tom Harris (who gets his climate science from the Bible) and Bob Carter (who warns about an ice age comething) apparently claiming that the IPCC reports are "unscientific and immoral" (archived here). Is that the best they can do? Seriously? I can't imagine the "press release" will be used anywhere except denier blogs that only pander to deniers and don't care how weird they look to the rest of the world.

Anthony Watts has also got "Bob Tisdale" calling for WUWT readers to post their best conspiracy theory about the IPCC (archived here).

About the IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). This was when conservative parties were in government. Ronald Reagan was US President and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister in the UK. Bob Hawke was the Prime Minister of Australia, but I doubt he would have had much say in this matter compared to the United States and Britain.

The IPCC itself employs only a very small staff. It's reports are prepared through a collaboration of thousands of scientists throughout the world, who volunteer their time to do so. Mostly this is unpaid out-of-hours work, because most of them would have to continue in their main job at the same time. The authors of the IPCC reports are experts in their respective fields. They review the latest scientific research and report on it. They judge the relevance, importance and accuracy of the research that has been published in scientific journals. There are also authors who write about policies, technology and actions taken to adapt to and mitigate global warming. This is based on information from a variety of sources, including industry peak bodies, government agencies and other reputable sources from around the world. Everything in the IPCC reports is heavily referenced so readers can verify the information.

IPCC reports are arguably the most comprehensive reports of any produced in the world today - by a long way. And the most scrutinised.

The IPCC has a well-defined structure. It also has a small secretariat to assist in coordinating its activities. It is subject to the members of the UN and WMO, which span the spectrum of government structures, ideologies and political persuasions. The WMO currently has 185 member states and 6 territories. The UN currently has 193 member states. If the majority of governments wanted to do so, they could disband the IPCC. They don't.

What deniers think the IPCC is...

WUWT does odd things from time to time as if it wants to show how nutty its readers are. You may recall the "Denialism Saved Me" thread from last year, which was featured at HotWhopper here and here and here.

Today, WUWT invites its readers to submit their notions about the IPCC. Anthony Watts put up an article by on of his frequent guests, who writes as "Bob Tisdale". "Bob" was inviting readers to post their conspiracy theories about the International Panel on Climate Change.

"Bob Tisdale" started the ball rolling with this gem of classic conspiratorial thinking:

The IPCC is nothing more than a report-writing entity:
that was created by politicians for use by politicians to achieve an political-agenda-driven goal
that relies on politician-financed climate models that were designed, and continue to operate, with the single-minded intent of showing bad things will happen in the future if we continue to consume fossil fuels.
The IPCC and their reports provide no value to anyone other than the politicians who created that body.

Bob doesn't say what that "political-agenda-driven goal" is, except to write about " single-minded intent of showing bad things will happen in the future if we continue to consume fossil fuels". Now evidence shows that government actions to curb CO2 can be very unpopular. Unscrupulous populist politicians have attempted to dupe the public into turfing a government that implements action to mitigate global warming. (They didn't dupe everyone by a long shot. In less than a week the Climate Council rose from the ashes of the Climate Commission, with $1 million from the Australian public.) The GOP in the USA banks on the fact that many Americans don't understand the crisis we're facing and does all in its power to deceive the public about climate change. They think they are on a 'winner' by supporting fossil fuels. (Yet it was the same Republican party that helped create the IPCC - which I expect they don't want to broadcast.) Governments know that mitigation actions are unpopular, but they also know that without them, the risk becomes too great. So what "Bob" thinks can be in it for politicians remains a deep and dark mystery.

There were a lot of responses at WUWT but none that I'd call imaginative. They were mostly a rehash of tired, worn out conspiracy theories of the kind you read every day on conspiracy blogs.

Can you do better than this?

Perhaps if there is still anyone out there who hasn't been banned from posting at WUWT, you could show them how it's done. For example, you could postulate that:

...the IPCC is a front for a secret organisation run by an evil tyrant who is really the leader of the world. She has embedded her people into every scientific organisation, every weather bureau, every scientific journal, every newspaper and media organisation, and every climate blog. She is even pulling the strings at WUWT. Her people are writing comments there with the sole purpose of making WUWT look like the dumbest climate blog in existence (isn't she clever).

I expect you could do much better than that. And much better than this sorry lot at WUWT:

The political success of the Montreal Protocol emboldened the Left to reach for the Holy Grail of environmentalism. Which is Full control and throttling of economies and resource production.
I say political success, because as is becoming clear, the science linking the Antarctic ozone hole and Manmade CFCs is starting to look questionable.

A political organization that must be studied in future years. Never have I thought that Lysenkoism can be brought to this level in the Western world nor have the basic scientific test of cause and effect been so distorted. They have done a brilliant job of crafting their PR.

The IPCC would not exist or have zero credibility if not for the likes of Betts, Schmidt, Trenberth, Stott, Dame Slymgis, Pachi and all the other hangers on from the met offices of the western government. Without taxpayer’s money being taken at every point in this stinkingingly corrupt process, both at the point of revenue and the point of energy use, none of these slimeballs would be in work.
Let’s get rid of the socialists and stop wasting public money on these shisters. Put them on the dole now or better still the street.
We needs the stocks of the medieval period to put these people in and the poor and elderly to chuck horses d’oeuvres at them.

The IPCC is nothing more than a collection of equivocators who, through applications of the equivocation fallacy, imply that they are supplying policy makers with information about the outcomes of climatological events when they are supplying policy makers with no such information. If politicians were truly interested in helping humanity and the planet they would fire all of these people and indict some of them.

6 comments:

Sorry Sou, this is off topic - but have you (and friends) seen what Jim Steele has just posted at YouTube? Jim Steele's IEEE Presentation Part 1: Climate Sensitivity and Drought: Landscape Changes vs CO2 ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FuKSK7kP0s By pure serendipity I'm the first viewer, but it would be good if a few other intelligent interests folks visited and took the time point out the silliness of Mr. Steele's arguments in the comments section.Cheers, CC

Nah, you're right not to waste more time on Jim. You have plenty of other fish to fry - it's a bunch of intellectual garbage. Though he hit me with it when I have a couple days all to myself.

Gimmi another day and I should be ready to post one of my detailed reviews as I have transcribed the whole thing and am now writing up my comments along with gathering scientific sources that support my admittedly under-educated assessment of Jim Steele's malicious* game.

*It's a word that keeps popping into my head when I review what that man claims/says… malicious as in: With intent to cause harm.

But, keep it under your hat - wouldn't want Steele to think we are conspiring.;- )

This will be one of the few comments I ever make on HotWhopper (because I feel you do a fantastic job that doesn't need further commentary), but that comment by Mike Bryant is reaching "Creationist" levels on my Unintentional Irony meter.

First of all, let me say that as far as I am concerned, Margaret Thatcher was an economic and social black hole, with no understanding of consequences of the advice she got from her "libertarian" closest advisers. But...

She was trained as a scientist (there's a story about that too). As a result she resisted the fruitcakes (Monckton claims to have been one) who competed for her favour. I never knew Reagan and others can tell us if she influenced him in the matter of the EPA and IPCC, but he does seem to have had respect for her.

1988: Speech on Climate Change to Royal Society. Promises that UK will lead research into climate change with a dedicated centre.

1989: Speech on Climate Change to United Nations.

1990: Opens Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research (now the Hadley Centre for Climate Change)- "Many of us have been worried for some time now about the accumulating evidence of damage to the global environment and the consequences for life on Earth and for future generations. I spoke about this to the Royal Society in 1988 and to the United Nations General Assembly in November last year. Today, [...] the publication of the Report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, [...] confirms that greenhouse gases are increasing substantially as a result of Man's activities; that this will warm the Earth's surface, with serious consequences for us all; and that these consequences are capable of prediction."

She did miss out on Salter's Duck, and allowed the anti-science lobby to give her false figures as to its inefficiency.

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All you need to know about WUWT

WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary, Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase:

Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure.

Definition of Denier (Oxford): A person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence.
‘a prominent denier of global warming’
‘a climate change denier’

Alternative definition: A former French coin, equal to one twelfth of a Sou, which was withdrawn in the 19th century. Oxford. (The denier has since resurfaced with reduced value.)